Power of a simple "I'm sorry."

It's interesting, my sister dismissing all the hurts inflicted & felt within our family, brushing them off with, "We were no different than most families."   

That statement  - "We're no different..." is as powerful as an apology, but in reverse.  Seven words is all it takes.  We're no better, no worse than most others.  Keep moving, ladies & gentlemen, nothing worth looking at here.  Certainly, nothing worth an apology.

All my life, from the time I was a little kid, I've always believed in the power of saying "I'm sorry" and meaning it, saying it and not doing the same action again, the action that caused another hurt.

I am so grateful that John is comfortable with a simple mea culpa.  He knows the related oops won't be brought up again after a genuine apology.  Hey, things happen, mess ups occur, even feelings get hurt.  Neither of us ever thinks the other made an intentional hash, both of us realize hurts still happen.  

My parents were intriguing case studies in apologies.  Mom apologized for everything.  Seriously.  If I griped about one of my sibs, it would take three sentences or less for Mom to make the source of disgruntlement her doing, her responsibity & offer apologies.  I tracked it - no more than three sentences, tops.  Dad was the only family member I was aware of who actually would offer an apology for something he said or did that went awry.  Not often, but on the rare occasion.

Sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like without John.  All my life, I thought it took pretty little to keep me happy.  How wondrously affirming to model with John the basic behaviors I always thought I believed to be the fair & just way to live.

There is great power to a simple, "I'm sorry."  When it is said, when the action isn't repeated.  And I hope that I realize the value of that simple statement when I've done something insensitive inappropriate dumb.

Smiling, remembering what John has long done when he's been in situation where an apology is appropriate.  He'll say it, then back it up with some action - doing the dishes, sprucing up our bed, making a fresh pot of coffee - that lets me know he's thinking about me.  What do I in a similar situation?  Make a double bowl of pop corn.  

Yep, there's a lot of power in a simple, "I'm sorry," and even more when it's back up by an action that says a silent, "I love you." 

Blaze of Golly

Interesting phone conversation with my sister - first in years.  And it went very well, am happy to say.  Expect we both let a lot roll right over us, stuff that might have messed us up years back.

Quite a few things were clarified over those 90 minutes, in a blazing light of illumination: 

One - we still play our family version of whisper down the lane.  My oldest brother is in the hospital in Norristown, about 30 minutes from my house.  How did I find out?  My #2 brother, who lives in Australia, called my sister yesterday, who lives in New Jersey, to let her know, then she called me today.  First, she talked about my great-niece's birth - Mike's first grandbaby - then mentioned Mike had also called about... Thus, it has always been.  At one point, if Mom wanted Peter & Mim to get important info, she'd share it with Mike & Kerry, with the unspoken hope they'd relay it back to PA & NJ. 

Two - my thought process, my communication patterns, my expectations of life are all the flip side of my sister's. 

Three - she considers our family challenges to be on par with the marjority of families, certainly no big whoop.  All families are, indeed, dysfunctional to one degree or another.  But our family went so far beyond the beyond.  At least in my experience.  It's important to remember that Mim worked for some wildly dysfunctional families.  Working with autistic kids is a constant battle to reclaim functionality in a dys- reality, both for the children & the families.  For Mim, dysfunction seems to have been the norm.  Never saw it that way before.  The families I came into contact with tended to be...  well, whole.  That was my desired set point - whole, healthy, supportive.  Nope, not much similarity here, either. 


Throughout my lifetime, however my sister defined family was what was accepted by my parents as reality, who tended to see & respond to things through her filter.  Golly, there she was again, this afternoon, defining our family as about on par, no stranger than most others, no better & no worse.  And this is me standing up and saying, for at least my own inner ears to hear - balderdash!

power of KNOWING

It never fails to amaze me, how just knowing that someone gets what's happening in my life, the good stuff & the challenging, is so moving.

Almost half a lifetime ago, Louise Doering Stevens comforted me, distraught at someone slamming me for harboring hidden agendas, by observing that I was one of the most "what you see is what you get" people she knew.

Almost thirty years ago, I learned a great disadvantage of NOT having an unspoken personal agenda is that when you don't have one, people tend to ascribe their own image of what it must be.  Quite the eye opener.

Fact is that I've always been pretty transparent, perhaps more than is wise.  If there's something I feel strongly about, am going to talk about it.  If there's someone I care about, am going to do all that is in my power to help them out, even if that means being a bit more open than they might like.  

Have always, from my youngest years, believed in the power of knowing.  Sometimes, just knowing my truth of a situation was enough to get me through it, even if it was lousy & beyond my ability to change.  

Writing a recent tip-of-the-hat to my long-gone father reminded me of that.  It didn't matter what he could do or couldn't do, what mattered in the end was realizing that he saw things in a clear light, without sentimentality or judgment.  That mattered - still does.  

30+ years ago, met with a minister about a situation at home, a delicate situation, involving a sibling he held dear to his heart;  I worried he'd have trouble accepting my challenges.  It truly did feel like a great weight lifted off my shoulders when he made it clear that he knew.  Couldn't take his counsel - move out of your family's shadow, get a life of your own - yet felt liberated just knowing at least one other person who mattered to me, whose opinion I valued, a clear-sighted straight-talker,  KNEW.

For all of my married life, have been blessed by the love of a man who has never - okay, only once - made so much as a negative crack about my siblings.  That matters to me.  He sees them as he sees them, without commentary.  Even if I get distressed, he doesn't diss them or excuse them.  That matters to me - a lot.

Having someone who grasps the power of knowing has been a life changer.  I still tend to turn against myself if distressed with others.  One time stands out in memory, early in our marriage.  Furious at John, I flew upstairs & emptied out half of the master bedroom closet.  John came upstairs to find me panting with exertion.  He looked at the clothing strewn across the bedroom floor, then looked back at me.  

"You're upset at me," was his only comment.  

I nodded my head in frantic agreement.  

"You're upset at ME," he repeated, a slight change in emphasis.  

This time, I cried out, "YES!"  

To which he responded, "So, why did you throw all of YOUR clothes out of the closet?"   

He didn't embrace me, didn't try to make me feel better - all he did was let me know that he knew.  And through his knowing, I was able to know, too.

Sometimes - a LOT of times - there's nothing I can do to make a situation better.  Especially in times of grief & loss, in times of conflict without easy resolution, when a friend is wracked with pain.  

Sometimes the only thing to do is also the most powerful - just knowing.  

Pulling KP duty

Kitchen Patrol - first room up for reconverting into a bastion of calm, order & welcome!  And just in time, since my 6-month season of bliss ~ ~ cupcake-baking, whoopie pie making, mango mango ice pop freezing ~ ~ is practically upon us.

A stash of ingredients are tucked away in the island, the muffin tins are located & centralized, the counters are being divested of layers of stuff, leaving plenty of open space.  Taking a whack at the pantry, saving the fridge for just before trash day.  

Make it the heart of the home it always was when Mom was with us.  A room of OUR own.

A room of my own

Am back to Day One in my Making a Change for Good daily journal.  Mind so full of Dad's 04/22 birthday, didn't give it a single thought.  And I am happy to be starting fresh.

Maybe because I am feeling refreshed.  A renewed beginning feels welcome.  Not a new one - what I bring to my current journal writing brings everything that came before, along with a fresh awareness.

I am a woman in search of a room of my own.  In all the homes I've lived in over the years, only two rooms gave me a sense of peace welcome belonging - the kitchen at Cherry Lane & the living room at Woodland Road.  And both of them were communal rooms.

We all need a room of our own, even if it's only our mind.  Which is the place where I've been least likely to feel a sense of peace welcome belonging.  Until now.  

It all - the Great Awakening - started with a calendar I coordinated for a wonderful woman, a pleasant acquaintance, who moved far away.  Seemed to me that having a calendar crafted by a range of her friends would make her feel more connected to a community that loved & missed her.  And it was a great idea.  Which never happened.  Every obstacle loomed up, keeping it from ever coming to completion.  To this day, I don't know where the file with the artwork is.  Felt like the hells in full battle array, keeping a wonderful outreach from happening.  The power of resistance felt downright tangible - this loving idea was never going to happen.  And it hasn't, over 18 months later.  

Sheez...

Other illustrations of my inner struggle are out there, but none so bold, so visceral as the calendar.  Something in me resists resists resists.  And it is real.  And it is as vulnerable as it is visceral.  

Visceral - that word worked its way into this posting.  It was as right as it was unclear in meaning.  YES, my deepest self really IS connected to finding a sense of wholeness.  Because "visceral" turns out to be the exact right word for where I have been.  It doesn't mean basic fundamental primary, which is what I sort of assumed.  Far from it.  When something's visceral, you feel it in your guts. A visceral feeling is intuitive — there might not be a rational explanation, but you feel that you know what's best.  Yep, that sums it up.  You feel like you know what's best.  Even when it's the polar opposite of sanity, as has been my experience.

Here's my 04/23/14 logical rational sensible reality in its simplest form - what's best for me is having a room of my own.  A room where I feel a sense of welcome, of belonging, of being at peace with myself & the world.  


As my John would say, getting to stripped-down-to-essentials awareness took as long as it took.  He taught me there's no slapping time schedules on getting clarity, all we can do is summon up the energy & will to set aside obstacles & obstructions.  

Maybe it's finally time to have a room of my own in our house because I've finally made a room of my own in my heart.

Two of a kind

Happy birthday, Dad!  You would have turned 103 - if you hadn't died at 61 years, 11 months & some days.

The two of us always had an interesting relationship.  Never, not once in my memory, did you ever side with me in a disagreement involving Mimmy.  Never happened.  Yet, by the time you died - when I was barely in my twenties - it had dawned on me that while I never felt like you gave me the affection & strong support you did my older sister, I got your respect.  Didn't take me long to realize that, to me, respect trumps affection any day.

Our challenge was that we were, in many ways, two of a kind.  We both loved being there for people, lending a helping hand, being generous with our time & money & resources.  Where we differ is that Dad liked taking care of people, whereas my joy is in nurturing them.  Dad didn't seem to have any concept of helping his children develop independent lives.  Just wasn't an issue for him. My guess is that he saw a father's role as being there when his children needed him, to be there in ways his own father never was.  It's doubtful the idea of emotional independence ever occurred to him.

We shared straight-shooting ways, which aggravate some as much as they please others.  It's a quality that stands me in good stead in my marriage.  As has our shared trait of appreciating others for who they are, rather than what we want them to be.  From what he showed & shared at the end of his life, Dad suffered no illusions about what made each of his children tick.  What a gift that was, realizing he knew.  

Out of calamity - the business where he was a v.p. burned to the ground, the owner didn't rebuild - Dad started his own, Lockhart Lumber.  It was just turning a serious profit when he died and, without benefit of his unique vision, fizzled after his death. 

My present to myself on Dad's birthday is to make him a very silent, ever-present partner in older2elder.  May his many legacies guide me in moving it past a whisp of idea to a reality, and may I have the time, energy & wherewithal to make it something that goes beyond my unique vision of warm responsive engaged elder care to a new culture that transforms olders & their families, their communities, their everything.

Happy birthday, Dad - - may your inspiration & my focused work bring many happy returns!

Fully expressed

I recently wrote on another blog,  Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door at Wittenburg; maybe I should write out my own Declaration of Independence to post on the sliding doors of every senior residence ~ ~  I hold these truths to be self evident - that all older others are born with the divine right to live as independent a life as they possibly can manage.  

Put another way, I believe & always have that we are all meant to be - at every point in our life - a fully expressed human being.  Of course, such a reality would come attended by the not-easy-to-experience consequence that people wouldn't present the false faces & fake pretenses that make life easier to move through.  

We'd have to be ourselves & experience others as their genuine, fully expressed selves.  That would be challenging & exasperating & sometimes gosh awful, but isn't that what life's meant to be? 

Not that it's been my experience.  Certainly not within my birth family, where the polar opposite is more the norm. 

My family has quite a few members who zone out anything contrary to their personal, preferred view.  They come by that naturally, from Mom, who would leave a room rather than hear anything contrary to her preferred beliefs or simply rewrote uncomfortable realities to suit her version of what should be.  There are a lot of people, especially women of her generation, just like her.

   
Many years ago, a young relative shared her belief we're supposed to remain pleasant & personable with family, working through any issues with friends, who don't present potential emotional land mines.  Present a false self to  ones we hold dear, be your true self only with people you can count on not trampling your feelings.  Gosh, I hope she grew past that (to me) limiting belief!  

Nothing tops the brother who remembers heading off to college at the earliest possible moment, shaking off the dust of home, ever to be independent of his toxic family, never to live again under the same roof.  It was strangely illuminating, even liberating, realizing how utterly & completely we live alternate realities.  

Last night, three loose threads - something I read, something I'd said, something I'd written - joined together to produce a blazing AH HA! moment. 

• In the afternoon, at a Current Events discussion at a grannie client's senior residence, someone warned the group to tred softly criticizing the president, because I would not like it - seizing the educable moment, I explained how criticism of any of my convictions are welcome WHEN they are backed up with specifics, not just a general unsupported slam.  

• In the early evening, I blogged a personal declaration of independence -  I hold these truths to be self evident - that all older others are born with the divine right to live as independent a life as they possibly can manage.

• In the late evening, reading in bed before John came up, came across the statement that we are each called to be a fully expressed human being. Almost leaped out of bed with joy & clarity!

YES!  We are each called to be fully expressed human beings at each & every point in our life.  The great AH HA! was realizing that belief has been part of the warp & woof of my life since...  well, forever.  

Rewind back to my early teens...   Praise be, for a link to A Thousand Clowns, a film my sister introduced me to in my early teens!!

The scene I most cherish is between Jason Rhobards' non-conformist writer & Martin Balsam, his successful brother.  Murray Burns paints his businessman brother as a sell out.  His pragmatic sibling, in a wonderful speech, stands tall as he sets Murray straight - he may twist & turn within "the rules," but  every day, in everything he does, he's proud to be the BEST possible Arnold Burns (starts at 7:38). 

That speech hit home with me at 14 or 15 years old, stays with me still, as does a line from Murray -  "You gotta own your own days and name 'em, each one of 'em, every one of 'em, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you. And that ain't just for weekends, kiddo."

Two things I'm going to celebrate by heading down to Be Well Bakery & Cafe for a cafe au lait & a yogurt parfait - we are ALL meant to be the best version of our most fully expressed self, every moment of every day however challenging that might make life ~and~ Murray was right in this - we gotta own our own days or else the years go by & none of them belong to us.

Disappearing acts

Yowser!  One of the gals at King of Tarts Bakery commented, "You're disappearing."  

Thought it was a reference to our absence from our favorite bakery.  Then it hit me ~ she meant ME, my willowier appearance.  My gosh, it's true - am losing weight  & it shows!! 

Yeah, I changed my eating habits to bring down my blood pressure, not to trim down.  Wondering how things might accelerate if I make INTENTIONAL  changes to trim down my flabbo physique?  

Hmmm...  

There are about 5.5 months between now & our 25th wedding anniversary.  Going to give myself a special something to go along with my special someone.

No, not a specific weight loss.  But a shift in life habits, a focus on "for better" goal planning & achieving while ditching "for worse" habits that hinder happiness.  Talk about a priceless gift! 

So - for the rest of April, take a morning walk.  Before hitting the bricks, do breath work.  Start my day at the best time for me & Sky - 5:30 a.m.  It's not a matter of having to compel myself to do what I don't care about;  those are three things that feel like a natural fit, once I get out of my way.

How many other disappearing acts wait in the wings to play a role in my transformed selfie?

Pathways

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” 

Can't remember a time when I didn't want to embody Emerson's words, forsaking the well-worn paths for the unexplored, the to-be-discovered.  But am realizing that really doesn't describe me at all.  I do love the back road, the rambly country lane, the big city side street.  And I am well-versed in super highways & multi-lane interstates.  It's the balance of the two that makes life interesting AND manageable.  

When I whisked a grannie client down to the Chart House in Philadelphia, we took the rambly 2-lane roads route UP TO the last bit, when we swung onto the Vine Street Expressway.  And we took I-95 home, when it was dark & there weren't any runners along the Kelly Drive or dozens of racing shells on the river.  It took both types of roadways to make the evening a delightful success.  

So, too, with life.  It is important to go off the well-worn path, to blaze a new trail, but whether it's on the one or the other, having a goal in mind is essential.  Which is not how I once understood the Emerson quote.  Maybe it was due to putting too much emphasis on "where the path may lead," thinking it was a call to forging ahead to some unknown destination.  

One thing I've learned over the years is that my ultimate destination is be open to surprises along the way, to redirecting my footsteps, to keep an eye out for the better direction, be it on a popular highway or a barely visible trail.  But blazing TOTALLY new paths?  Am thinking more & more that it's romantic, but highly impractical.  Be open to it, be willing to whack away when necessary, but to prefer it to going where others have gone before?

Sorry, Ralph - doing it your way left me stranded too many times. Give me good roads with a worthy destination & good companions along the way. 

Transformer

Interesting experience, transforming.  Feels like one of those toys, where something that starts out looking like one thing can be turned into something entirely else.  

Okay, am still working out how to get the pieces of the one thing to click into the new, bigger, more awesome whatever.  

But I’m getting there,  literally bit by bit.  

Keep running into ancient road blocks - like, signing up for the ACA a month ago, but let myself get discouraged having problems getting through to the folks who arrange payments, so am still not really covered.  Such an old old old never-worked habit, this not completing dumbness.  Just one way to get past it - go in the right direction.

Just like a child working to figure out the toy transformer, just going through this process is entertaining enlightening informing.  But I've got to keep working at it. 

What if...

... I don't get the funding to go to Omega?  Was taking concrete steps to make it possible actually enough to glean major benefits from just those few actions?  Is it possible taking seriously all the five workshops can offer, not just in my head & heart but in my gut, puts me in a pretty fabulous place, even if the reality is that I don't go?  Is that what my soul meant when it told me the benefits WOULD happen?

Yes, yes & yes to all of the above.

If funding doesn't come through, then I'll apply for early Social Security & put that money to work.  It won't make Omega possible, not even one of the five workshops, but it will allow me to do an immense amount of transformative work right here in my own back yard.  It can underwrite two sessions a month with the great Kim Vargas, just talking - no issues, just inner clarity.  I can take meditation & laughter yoga & QiGong sessions at the Resiliency Center for almost nothing.  It can underwrite tutoring in improving my blogging skills.  It can underwrite developing language & skills that are within sight but outside my grasp.  Good reasons to opt for the early, less $$ pay outs.  

Impossible to express what good it did, just writing funding request letters.  Not requests that whined about "I need $ to survive," but "Looking for a loan to do AB&C to help me do XY&Z - but am going to do XY&Z no matter what."  

THIS is what the last four years have been about - getting to a place of abundance, where dreams of connection & community & change-making seem to be streaming out of my finger tips.

What if funding for Omega doesn't happen?  I'll do what I can with what I have where I am & experience the wonder of it all.  

Reminds me of the first Monday after meeting John.  Every Monday night, I basked in blues at Temperance Houseday nights for blues.  After our first date, Saturday night, John asked if I wanted him to join me at The Temp.  Explained to him that while it would make me happy if he came, I was going to be happy whether he came or not.  

I'll be happy if my funding requests come through but yay or nay the deep work will happen, no matter what.  Powers beyond understanding are at work, and I am grateful.  And already at work.  No "what if"s, just NOW.    

For good, for ill, for in between

Yesterday was National Siblings Day.  Facebook was filled with wonderful pictures of beaming brothers & sisters, along with tender funny loving comments.  Made me smile.  And, just under the wire, I got to add my own words of thanks, appreciation.

Appreciation.  Great word.  Am lucky to be able to appreciate all that my brothers & sister brought into my life.  

It was soul satisfying to discover that Laurie Kramer, professor of applied family studies, supports my long-held belief that siblings can have even more influence over an individual's development than parents.  

Sheez, can I relate to that!  

Mom was a dim star in my universe, compared to my older sister's dazzling sun.  If a message from Mom countered one from Mim (8 years older & utterly completely totally adored), Mom's was trashed & Mim's was treasured.  

One of the greatest things I've learned over the years is that there are as many images of family as there are people within it.  If you were to put my family - two parents, three brothers, two sisters - in separate rooms with a lap top & instructions to write out a description of our family, there would be seven sometimes wildly different accounts of who we are & how we interact.  

But the reality of massive diversity tends to be ignored, much to the detriment of all.  In my family, it seems to me there are two things my sister & two surviving brothers absolutely postively agree on - they all think that John is the brother they deserve & none of them like me.  That's my take.  Is it true?  Does it matter?

What we perceive - particularly with family - is what drives us.  For decades, I felt that the only value I brought to my family was what I could do for them in any given moment.  If felt like if they needed me, I was part of the family;  if they didn't...  But for years, I've also felt that none of them feel particularly connected to each other, so why should they be any different with me?  If that's even the way they are.  

My siblings are, unlike me, very private people.  My sister & my oldest brother seem to find life difficult, a far greater challenge than I can imagine.  On the other hand, I was born a Little Suzie Sunshine.  From my earliest days, my expectation was that life was good, we are born to be happy & we are meant to be supportive of others as well as ourselves.  It's no wonder they seem to have problems relating to me, while I continue to think they're the cat's whiskers.  

Unfortunately for my parents, the messages I received from my sister & oldest brother - particularly my sister - were far more powerful than anything they had to offer.  Luckily, the very thing that made their messages all the more powerful - the range of age between Peter & Mim and me (14 & 8 years older, respectively) - is what also provided the natural distance that helped me experience family life in a somewhat detached manner.  I was soaking in messages (sent or not) and observing, at the same time.  That would ultimately be my salvation.

Frankly, after Ian died, I was a mess. He was accidentally killed on Easter Monday, playing at a friend's house.  If it happened today, the family would have gone into the counseling, even his classmates would have been considered potentially affected by the sudden, shocking loss.  But this was 1959 - such responses were unimaginable. We were all left to process it in our own ways.  

That still shocks me.  Being raised with both feet firmly in the Therapeutic Age, it is incomprehensible that only one person - a minister - seemed to have the slightest clue that maybe, just maybe my brother's death might rip apart our sense of family, might damage our individual sense of self.  But no alarms were raised, the damage was just quietly done.  

In many ways, I seem the luckiest of the Lockharts.  For whatever reason, from whatever source, I've always been driven to scope out challenges, analyze personal dynamics, talk out problems.  For many years, this was far from a blessing, as it was the absolute opposite of my sibs & parents. Doesn't make them wrong, doesn't make me wrong, just makes us different.  And at odds.  Sadly, I didn't see that, not for decades & decades.  I saw them as the right way to be & myself as the wrong, the abysmally wrong way.  

How glorious to be older, with the perspective of decades to look back over family trials & travails to see the humanity of the players.  At 62, I can appreciate the influence my older sibs - particularly my sister & oldest brother - had on my personal development.  

And that's about as far as I can go.  

Everything I know about family, about our family, is true for me & me alone.  Instead of bashing my head against the wall in frustration over family issues, I'm free to take the many blessings that have come my way thanks to being their sib & let the rest be what it is - subjective & possibly utterly out of whack with anything that actually happened.

For good, for ill, for in between - serve as the most awesome petri dish for human dynamics.  What we take away from our parents, our siblings, our aunts & uncles & cousins can illuminate & deepen everything in our life.  It's not all about them, not all about us;  it's all about living & learning & growing.  

That's what I'll share with Dr. Kramer, if she ever comes knocking to ask my opinion.  We have the families we have so can apply what they've taught & shown ~ always always always remembering it cuts both ways.  May I have been a blessing in my siblings lives, as they have been & continue to be in mine.

I'm watching....

Roald Dahl advised, "Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

What fun to notice all the unlikely places that heap great helpings of magic into my life.

Who would have thought that the most traditional, the most "high church" of all our local church services would feed my inner Perle Mesta?  Yet, it does!  FACT:  it's even better than throwing mega parties at Squirrel Haven (events that ended once the cats commandeered the house)!

Eons ago, when I was a young adult, people were still throwing cocktail parties after church & before Sunday dinners.  Years ago, they went the way of the dodo bird.  Then, not long ago, someone (bless him or her!) got the brilliant idea of having sips & nibbles in the Choir Hall after the service. Now, every holiday, I get to flex my party wizard muscles as I put on the "let's social" spread after the adult service.  Beyond satisfying ~ no how, no way I could fit so many people into Squirrel Haven!     

It's a joy to put on the spread before a holiday, which I nab as often as I can.  This week - Palm Sunday - is all about Easter, with lemon cookies & little bitty chocolate cupcakes with birdie nest frosting, Mom's chocolate-enrobed buttercream eggs & my hand-crafted home-baked crackers, olives & cream cheese log & veggie egg salad spread mounded into a half-egg shape, dill dip with wafered carrots & celery sticks.  Oh, and a lovely refreshing punch!

No idea what we will do on Easter.  It's a tough day to put on a special dinner here - it begs for family around a table - and super expense to go out.  We could have gone to The Water Wheel for their brunch - we did that a couple years back;  alas, the stars of the groaning sideboard are rounds of roast beef & a glorious ham & salmon with horseradish dill sauce (aka a waste of  $ for vegetarians).  

Whatever we do - thanks to magic in an unexpected place - will be wonderful.  I will have gotten to feed my beloved masses, John will have gloried in prep tastings & all the left overs!  All's right with our world!!!

Most unlikely

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”   ~  Roald Dahl

Yes, yes & YES!  Once upon a time, I would say, "Great things happen when you live without a net."  Maybe what I meant was that great things happen when we believe.  When we believe in absurd & in people (even when they seem to let us down, or vice versa) & that the perfect end to a day is found in a sigh and sense of satisfaction.  

Magic happens, never doubt.  And you can't find it - it finds you.

We do family!

Some months back - probably in the fall - a mirror at A Mano Gallery/Lambertville hove itself into my line of sight.  It was bordered with numerous quotes, one of which caught my eye & my heart - "We do family."  Those three words stuck me with on the drive home, on the days that followed.  They changed my life.

By the time we crossed over the bridge, back into Pennsylvania, it had hit me right between the eyes - for far too many years, I'd let my siblings influence my experience of family.  And it was time to STOP!  It matters not what anyone else does or doesn't do, this gal DOES family. 

Except you become as little children...

Yesterday, for the second time in a few months, my pastor took my breath away.  A few months ago, he stunned me during after-church announcements with his conditioned praise of Nelson Mandela on the great leader’s death, noting some people found him a controversial.  Seriously?!  Yesterday, it was his scoffing reference to someone’s belief in the importance of meditation.

Amazing.  Feels to me that he puts all of our faith’s understanding in one basket, with all focus on written revelation & none on personal spiritual practices like meditation & yoga.  Not unexpected, since understanding through learning is innately masculine, while understanding through perception is innately feminine – which is why for wisdom we need to combine the two. 

A minister to whom I shared some of my thoughts noted that The Writings do talk about the importance of reflection.  He was spot on – they do.  But HOW are we called to reflect?  WHAT is the end?

Personally, I believe reflection is the great essential of faith, whatever your religion.  Personally, I believe that was what Jesus referred to when he told his disciples, “Except you become as one as these little ones, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”   It is a question I write to every new bishop, asking – what do you understand this passage is saying?  Have yet to receive an answer.

The way I was taught that passage was either that we needed to be like little children, willing to be led by wise teachers, or that we needed to regenerate so we can be reformed.  My own understanding of the passage is that we are to become as we ideally were as children, curious with a fresh view.  Developing what Buddhists refer to as Beginner’s Mind.  And two key steps to doing that are found in yoga & meditation, both of which I believe should be part of a General Church education, from Kindergarten through old age.

At one time, I was fond of saying my birth faith was a “wink wink” religion.  The Writings talk about a lifelong practice of personally examining our beliefs to ensure what we think we believe is what we really do, not outgrown but still hanging around as if it fits.  The church talks about the need for reflection & self-examination, but it seems to be said with a wink of the eye, with an assumption that of course we will still believe everything we were taught at home, at school, at church.  Wink wink. 

My dear old mother claimed that most people who were – like herself – born & raised in the General Church didn’t have a clue just how radical a faith ours is.  Am not totally sure what she meant, but I’ve always thought the emphasis on question question question was – and is – exceptional.  As in “not the norm.” 

At the gathering after my confirmation (we’re confirmed as adults, not children), the officiating minister noted that he typically advised young people to wait a few years before being confirmed, rather than doing it as soon as they were eligible.  He talked about the importance of questioning their faith before embracing it as theirs.  He floored me by saying that he felt I had done so sufficiently to leave him free to say yes & confirm me at eighteen. 

Bishop Pendleton’s words resounded in me at the time, as they still do.  I was raised in the time of ministers who stressed, over & over, the crucial critical key importance of not simply self-reflection but self doubt.  Do you believe such & so from yourself or because it was taught to you by someone else?

Years ago, driving to work down Davisville Road between Byberry & Terwood, I heard Meryl Streep (or was it Glenn Close?) being interviewed on NPR.  She was talking about when SHE turned 18, as she was about to enter college.  She made the decision to question EVERYTHING she believed to that point, realizing that most of it was actually what other people held dear, what others had instilled in her.  It doesn’t matter which actress said it;  what matters  is how clearly it rang true for me.  It just clicked, clicked so strongly I can still picture where I was on hearing it. 

We – all of us – absorb “mental models” from everything around us, from friends & family, from teachers & society, from t.v. & social media.  What we rarely do is make the opportunity to distance ourselves from what we’ve been taught to what we really believe.  Enter, meditation.

Yes, it stunned me that my pastor scoffed at Eben Alexander’s apparent belief that mediation is an essential to true understanding.  One reason why I continue to resist resist resist developing my own daily meditation practice is knowing how profoundly it will change my life for the clearer.  There is something comforting in not seeing, in not understanding which treasured beliefs are actually my own & which are actually mentally modeled on others’ beliefs & values, in not discovering which of my treasured comforting soothing beliefs have become outdated & no longer reflect my current values.

Weird  to grow up in a religion where some ministers & teachers seem to believe that faith is static, that what we learn as children & young adults  & much much older remains precisely as it was when we first learned it.  How grateful I am for Willard Pendleton, Ormond deCharms Odhner, Cairns Henderson and all the other ministers who emphasized the importance on being able to identify your own beliefs, separate from everything else, even separate from what you once held dear & no longer do. 

Haven’t a clue what any of them would have thought about meditation as a way to greater understanding.  Back when I was a young woman, anything intuitive tended to be painted as “from the hells.”  Not much of an encouragement.  But I wonder…

I thank my pastor for his scoffing comment about meditation.  At the time, I was interested in hearing more about what he thinks about meditation.  Now – nah.  But I am grateful to him for getting me thinking about the power of meditation – and yoga – in developing a sense of… whatever.  And for helping kick my butt into finally going beyond talking about it to actually making it part of my spiritual practice.  For that, he has my most profound appreciation.

Under the Squirrel Haven Sun

This exchange from Under the Tuscan Sun (film, not book) resounds with me:

Martini: I think you got your wish. 

Frances: My wish? 

Martini: On that day we looked for your snake, you said to me that you wanted there to be a wedding here. And then you said you wanted there to be a family here. 

Frances: You're right... I got my wish. I got everything I asked for. 

Like Frances, I got my wish.  I got everything I asked for.  Like Frances, it didn't come in ways or forms i could have expected.  It never does.  

We can prepare the soil, but grace blossoms in its own way, at its own time - when it blooms at all

Glorious Gatherings - THANKSGIVING

Where my little hometown, beloved community, still excels at bringing everyone together in glorious connection is Thanksgiving, the 19th of June, and the 4th of July.  Ain't nothin' like 'em!

Mind you, I spent most of my late teens & twenties going to Thanksgiving service two states away, in Maryland.  All because of an electric organ.

Once our local Thanksgiving celebrations were shifted from the cathedral to the high school's  cavernous Field House, the Lockharts stopped going.  Instead, bright & early every 4th Thursday in November, my Dad drove us down to a church group between Baltimore & Washington, D.C., the present-day incarnation of the society where my Mom grew up.  For many years after his passing - way too young, at almost 62 - Mim, Mom & I continued the Thanksgiving trek.

We sang the same songs we'd be singing back home, heard sermons of thanksgiving from ministers we knew, exchanged greetings with many people we went to school with or considered friends.  Much like we would have at home, without the electric organ that was the supposed reason for the trek in the first place.

The whole thing never made sense to me.  First off, church music down there was played on a reedy electric organ, just like up here - except they didn't have a grand pipe organ right across the pike, silent for the morning.  I guess that was what rankled my parents, what we could have been hearing, if only...

Neither of them even seemed to think trading off one day of admittedly sub-par organ music was worth having a gathering of ALL our community under one roof at one time.  The reasoning by the powers-that-be was that it didn't have to be in the church, because Thanksgiving was a national holiday decreed by President Lincoln & every president thereafter.  But the most important reason was that Thanksgiving, of all holidays, should be celebrated en masse.  

With this, I heartily concur.  Just writing about the service gives me a thrill.  Mind you, I don't take John, but slip out of bed, letting him sleep on while I dress, gather up my offering of thanksgiving (bunches of green & red grapes, being sure to leave him - my greatest blessing from God - a couple bunchlettes), and head down the street & up the road.  

The deep sense of joy & connection as I sit in the bleachers (can sense Dad wincing), arriving early to watch the great swell of people arrive.  Old people I've known since a baby, babies I knew before they were born who are now grandparents, newly weds & brand new parents, and all the younger ones, the ones I'm just getting to recognize or know.  My heart grows 10 sizes each Thanksgiving.  

And, yes - the organ is comparatively dismal.  But then, the organ in the church is now (blessedly, temporarily) electronic rather than pipe.  Who cares?  Who's there for the organ music?  The singing - that's a different matter.  What impossible-to-express feelings sweep over me hearing my friends & acquaintances & "I'd like to get to know" thems ring the rafters with their uplifted voices.  It never ceases to thrill, sending shivers of every blessed emotion I hold most dear up & down my spine. 

That is why I choose to not nudge & cajole a slumbering John into coming.  He didn't grow up in my small hometown, doesn't know the songs by heart, knows some people by sight & just a special few by name.  At this holiday of the most profound connection, he'd be un.  This one day a year gives me the perfect opportunity to let him know I'm just fine with him being who he is, where he is, doing whatever he is rather than feeling compelled to be by my side. 

For a gal who basks in the wonder & delirious joy of connection - to loved ones, to friends, to community, to God - Thanksgiving in my hometown is one of the greatest moments of my year.  I might look like I'm all by myself, tucked up on the top row of the bleachers, surrounded by families with the stray individual, but I am not alone.  I am the most un-alone I'll be all year, watching each group or individual enter to my left, then take up their offering or find a place to sit, remembering all those who are no longer there, all the folks of my hometown who came to this place at this time on this day of thanksgiving & who made, in a wide range of ways, a difference in my life.  

And then it is over.  I take my time working my way down the bleachers, through the huge room, out the building, to my car, taking the time to beam big cheeky grins or toss off a wave, share a greeting or a hug, a high 5 or an elbow bump with very young friends, basking all of it.  For years, as I passed through the foyer, I'd rest my hand in love & longing on the trophy case my father loving crafted as a gift in memorium to his youngest son, who died at 11, too young to ever shoot a basket in the very room in which we'd worshipped;  the case has been moved on, now serving in a new place of honor at the school's performing arts center, but always & forever dedicated to the young life I love so well. 

Finally, I'm at my car, then slowly making my way out of the parking lot, inching along, the fire house to my left & the football field to my right.  I pause at the top, waiting for the break in traffic that will set my car heading north, to hearth & home & hubster.  

A glorious gathering, my Thanksgiving celebrations in that great cavernous room with its sub-par organ & bleacher seating remain in my heart throughout the year, rich layer upon rich layer.  And I am blessed - by church, by town, by friends & community.